


A Misplaced Book

by Beleriandings



Category: Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
Genre: Gen, and is not sure what to make of this, finding strange books in the library, grey-asexual Lirael, librarian Lirael
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 05:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6740617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Lirael, Grapholagnia - The urge to stare at obscene pictures</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Misplaced Book

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not quite sure if this fulfils the prompt but... I tried?

Lirael frowned down at the pages of the book, her face twisting as she flicked through the images. She was not precisely supposed to be here, she knew; she was supposed to be returning to the main reading room to carry on reshelving books. But one of the books had caught her eye as she was leaving; a slim volume bound in dark purple leather, sticking half out from above the other books, untidily. She pulled it out, curious. _The Exalted Acrobatics of the Bedchamber: Being a Collection of Musings from the House of the Silk Sheets, a fine establishment of Belisaere, by the ladies of that house, Keeping No Detail Undisclosed (illustrated edition)_. 

She frowned. This was the geology section.

The sendings would know where to put the book, she felt sure, but her interest had been piqued now, even as she felt her face heat up. 

And so Lirael had let the book fall open - its pages were well-worn, but some fell open more naturally, clearly well-thumbed by Clayr of years past - and at first she had not known quite been able to tell how the people’s bodies in the images were entwined. She had been tilting her head curiously, trying to work it out - some of this did not look _at all_ comfortable, but the annotations assured her that this particular image in fact detailed  _the most divine form of pleasure for three_  - when she felt the ghost of a Charter magic-limned hand tugging at her sleeve. 

Lirael jumped a few inches into the air at that, dropping the book at her feet. The cowled sending bent silently to pick it up. “It wasn’t mine!” said Lirael, hastily, and a little too loudly. “I just… found it here, someone must have put it back on the wrong shelf… I was going to…” she gestured helplessly.

The sending said nothing, of course, merely tilted its head, offering the book back to her, as though it encountered wayward young Clayr reading such material every day of its life. Perhaps it had, she thought. It didn’t have a face, but she could have sworn it was smiling. 

Lirael shook her head, clasping her hands together and then smoothing down her waistcoat. “No, thank you.” 

That, she felt, had been quite enough adventure for one day.


End file.
